


Not So Bad

by axiomatikss



Series: OpenSpace [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Aquariums, Gen, How Do I Tag, Human Davepetasprite, Human Davesprite (Homestuck), POV Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider, POV Second Person, cursed information: davepeta kins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23873311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axiomatikss/pseuds/axiomatikss
Summary: Dave and Bro go to an aquarium.
Relationships: Dave's Bro | Beta Dirk Strider & Dave Strider
Series: OpenSpace [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1720522
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Not So Bad

**Author's Note:**

> This is apart of an AU I'm writing! I'm not sure how to tag or title most of what I've written for it so far, but as the best thing I've written of it, I figured I might as well publish it as an introduction to Bro and Dave's characters. Feedback is appreciated, so enjoy =)

THE DATE is November 5th 2017. Dave is turning thirteen soon, so you devised a trip. He’s always been asocial, so it’s just you and him. You’ve always theorized that he hated the life he lived, being in such a large (and growing) household, but he doesn’t hold any resentment towards you or his other guardians - if he did, he’d be vocal about it.

He has always been pretty blunt. You like that about him.

Anyways, back to what you’re doing. The date is November 5th 2017, and Dave is twelve and eleven months old (as of two days ago). Parties have never been much of an option, but you do all cook on birthdays. Share a meal together, yadda yadda.

It’s not enough for you. Makes you worry if they feel underappreciated. As Dave’s biological father, you’re obligated to do something to remedy your son’s potential upset. Sorta. You’ve never seen a kid with 5 parents before, but you assume even then regular kids get a little more attention than you give yours.

Of course, D calls bullshit. If the only one out of you five with relatively stable family says so, then it must have some truth, you guess. Doesn’t make you feel any better though (if only it was that simple, if only you didn’t have the nagging fear that you were a terrible parent looming over you almost constantly.)

So. Today. November fifth. Birthday soon. 

Honestly, this whole thing is more self-indulgent than anything. Not the location, or the activities, but the event itself. A part of you wonders if you plan these more because you want to feel adequate and less because birthdays are something to be celebrated. The rest of you thinks that parents are above that level of selfishness, or at least wishes that was the case. You’re so indecisive. The only time you act correctly is under pressure. At least you have that for you.

As of two hours ago Dave has been ready to leave, but you certainly haven’t. It’s only now, at 1PM, that you pile into the car for the half-hour drive to a nearby aquarium. The place caters to kids and aims to be educational, or at least claimed to be, so hopefully Dave, a kid with an unending thirst for all knowledge deemed “useless,” would find it fun. 

In the least, he seems excited, and oddly punctual (given that he’s usually only getting dressed at this time, god, you wished you were still a kid, then you could wear a onesie half the time (is Dave too old to be doing that? You don’t know and don’t care, onesies are fucking amazing.)) He finished lunch in all of ten minutes, and now you’re on your way. The mansion you live in is barely ten minutes from a highway and then its a straight drive. A boring one, that’s for sure. Dave whips out a DS you’re pretty sure is Lola’s and begins playing mario kart on full volume. 

It’s only after he’s finished three full races that you begin to think it’s… really fucking awkward here. Music? Music is an interest you and Dave both share, but how do you start? ‘What CD you want in?’, ‘What kinda music you want?’

Fuck. What if he wants the radio? 

Y’know what? Fuck it.

“Hey, li’l man,” you begin, hopefully sounding casual and not unsure (and stupidly scared of talking to your own fucking kid, scared to fuck things up, like a good father never would,) and you exhale, “do me a favor?” 

He looks up, staring at you through the mirror, through his shades, dark enough you can barely make out his eyes, but can still see the round edges of his face and how he’s staring, waiting for an answer and-

Fuck. You really are fuckin’ stupid huh. Scared to talk to one of your own kids still. 

All you can manage for a second is just a stupid “uh,” sound, and if you weren’t disappointed before, you are now. “Y’see the pocket behind my seat? Reach in there and grab the CD binder. Pick one for me, mkay?” Stupid, stupid, stupid! You feel like an idiot, and definitely sounded it. Dave does as asked, but you can tell his eyebrows are raised through the rear-view mirror. Is he relaxed or confused? FUCK.

It’s kinda pathetic, you think, how you’re clamming up in front of your own son because he looked at you funny. God DAMN this was stupid. It was a bad idea. You should turn around and just g-

No, no, Dave was excited. Dave’s still excited, he’s just bored in the car, and you’re an idiot who needs to calm the fuck down. Calm. The fuck. Down. Inhale, exhale. Not… weird, obnoxious staring and distracted driving, Eyes on the road.

The road’s straight and there’s no traffic, there is nothing to look at. Dave is still fiddling around with the binder… “You know what you wanna listen to?” Wow, you didn’t even think about saying that. And you didn’t sound half as stupid as before. That’s right Ambrose, focus on the road…

“Yeah,” he says, turning another floppy plastic page. The noise is strange, and the silence between each turn of the page is stark. “’M thinkin garage, maybe.”

You know damn well you don’t have any good garage CDs in that binder. Fuck. “Wait,” Dave mumbles, and pulls out… a movie soundtrack? Since when did you have that? 

“It’s Dirk’s, he thinks he lost it.” 

You can’t help but snort. “Really, man?”

He hands you the CD and turns the DS off.

7 minutes left of your drive, and you think today might not be so bad.

They go slow, and you don’t exchange another word with Dave until you park. The absence of words seem more… comforting now, than anything. Dave’s excitement seemed to have tapered off. Then again, he isn’t a very emotional kid, so what do you know?

3 minutes later, you are wrong as fuck. He’s crying over how ugly seahorses are. Like, a full-on ugly-laugh-turned-sob-session. Fuck. He’s doubled over, and frankly he looks kinda stupid. Trying to catch his breath, he looks up at the glass, at the stupid, beady eyes watching him curiously, and turns to you, giggling all over again. 

You can’t help it. It starts as a small chuckle but in less than a minute you’re laughing like an idiot, too. Dave, barely breathing, taps your arm and points. “Look at that one,” he says between much needed breaths, wiping dried tears from his cheek, “looks like a goddamn lizard.” Smiling between deep inhales, you pat his back and stand up straight.

“Motherfucker looks like Rango.”

Dave… clearly doesn’t get the reference. Now that you think about it, he did watch it when he was 6. In cinemas, but that was just under 5 and a half (or so) years ago now. “I uh… took you to the cinema to watch it, lemme get a photo.” Well that’s one way to kill the mood. Still, you type rango (2011) into the search bar and show him.

“Huh.” The kid looked between the seahorses and the image on your phone then snickered. “He does.”

That was… the first exhibit. Today is going to be a long (looooonnnnngggggg) day. 

“Well, l’il man, can we skip the jellyfish or-”

“Fuck no, jellyfish are awesome.” Oh-kay then…

Naturally, he runs off before you see him go. Good thing he actually went to the jellyfish and not the reptile corner that exists for some reason. Fuck snakes. Nothing interesting happens there, and Dave doesn’t seem let down by the trip at all. You think, given the whole “socially-awkward/anxious(?)-parent” thing, you’re doing pretty well.

Of course, now that it’s 2pm, and you’ve seen a grand total of 5 underwater creatures and a buncha cool shells, more people enter the aquarium and so activities begin taking place. Meaning talks about certain animals, and you know damn well you have to see at least one of them, or its a day out wasted. Who doesn’t like learnin’ bout the pretty fishies?

Dave. Dave doesn’t like learning about the fishies. He wants to see the sting-ray talk. Are sting-rays fish? You’re going with ‘no,’ on that one. They look too stupid to be fish. So Dave is listening to some lanky teenage troll with a stutter talk about stingrays. The kids shorter than you by a good few inches, so he’s tall enough to see given that its almost 100% kids paying attention to this. Regardless, he sets up a stool and awkwardly waves over the interested few. Not many people like stingrays, huh? From where the troll is stood, you can see his nametag is labeled ‘Eridan.’ 

If that aint a stupid name you don’t know what is. Good thing you’re probably never gonna hafta say it, you can think of three ways to pronounce it thus far. The kid (I mean, he looks like twenty, he’s ‘kid’ enough for you) stands on top of the box for a few seconds before be began talking. “Stingrays aren’t really thought of as fish, but that’s wwhat they are.” Damn. “They are vvery closely related to sharks, actually, wwhich are also fish by the wway. Just big and ugly.” he pauses and steps down, grabbing a cooler from a table you hadn’t even noticed was there. “Wwhile I am goin to be talkin to you about these guys, I am also goin to be feedin them.” Dave hasn’t taken his eyes off the stingrays once, you can’t even tell if he’s listening. “They may be really fu- big. Really big, but they don’t eat all that much. The species we have here are yellow-spotted stingrays, and they get to be 16 inches at a maximum, wwhich isn’t the biggest but it isn’t exactly small.” 

All in all, the talk lasts about 20 minutes. 2:34PM. Lunchtime. Then what? Fuck knows. Dave better not wanna see the snakes. Maybe you CAN cut it short, just… ignore the third of the aquarium that the snakes are visible to… maybe…

Or maybe he’ll spot the snakes while you make your way over to the cafeteria.

“Bro.”

“Hm?”

“First of all, ham sandwich ‘nd apple juice please, second of all, can we see the snakes?”

Naturally, you can’t say no.

The sandwich is gone in five minutes, so you have the excuse of a full cup of piping hot coffee to stay away from the fuckin’ things. Dave slurps an entire bottle of apple juice in about 20 seconds. Nice.

No, its not nice. Now he wants to go to the mean scale creatures. He’s staring at you. You’re staring at the table.

“Dude, are you scared of snak-”

“No.” You are absolutely scared of the snakes. “Lets go.”

“...Are you gonna get up?”

“You know where they are, just gimme a second.”

It takes a solid minute for you to stand up because god fucking dammit, snakes are the worst. Why the fuck does an aquarium even have snakes? Fuckers don’t live in the sea. If you remember correctly some snakes live in fuckin deserts, which are the total opposite of the sea. 

By the time you turn to walk down to Dave, he’s avidly listening to (yet another troll) worker talk about the snake she has wrapped around her arm. Just as you come into earshot, she says, “her name’s Hermoine! They’re all named after Harry Potter characters.” Her nametag say’s Feferi. Big upgrade from… however the fuck you say the last guy’s name. “Oh. And you are..?”

You clear your throat. “His dad.” 

She smiles at you, and you swear to god if she asks you if you want to know about snakes-

“So, would you like to touch her? She doesn’t bite.” Thank fuck she’s speaking to Dave. 

Dave turns to you, as if asking permission. “You can do it, you know.” It takes all of half a second for him to smirk at you, and ask if you want to.

Fuck. No. Holy fucking shit, the nerve of this kid. “Maybe you should stroke her too!” His voice is… painfully chipper. The troll girl looks at you with a smile, “she doesn’t bite!”   
She repeats the phrase, which would be annoying in any other situation, but you don’t mind right now.  
Dave wants you to touch the snake. Random worker lady wants you to touch the snake (so you’ll leave, but she still wants you to.) Dave, your son who would be disappointed if you didn’t rise to the stupid challenge, wants you to touch a disgusting, ugly, scaly (sentient) rope. Fuuuuuccckk.   
You really fuckin wanna say no. You don’t wanna touch that thing- it doesn’t even fuckin’ blink! It’s wrapped itself around the Feferi’s upper arm and is leaning towards her neck. 

She… doesn’t… bite… You’ll be fine. You can touch the little bastard, laugh at Dave for doubting you and be done with it.

“Bro? You don’t hafta touch the snake if you really don’t wanna. I was joking.”

“What? No, I’m touchin’ the fuckin snake.”

“You’re scared.”

“Psh, no.”

The little shit’s grinning. You’re about to lift your hand and touch the thickest part of the snake- currently curled up near Feferi’s elbow, when the thing lurches slightly forward, face… thing… raised into the air. It’s looking at you. It’s mocking you with its stupid little forked tongue, sticking it out like its flipping you off.

“Oh, fuck you,” you murmur, and tentatively raise your hand. 

“Bro, seriously, if you’re that scared you don’t gotta-”

“Fuck you, too, I can do it!”

Wow, you sound stupid. Today’s been odd, huh. Shitting yourself first over your kid, and now over a docile animal. Actually, scratch that, snakes shouldn’t be considered animals at all. Docile sack of shit. Yeah. 

Slowly, you raise your hand towards.., the girls elbow. Oh, there’s a snake there, whoops. Wouldn’t it be a shame if you accidentally touched the snake instead of a random person’s elbow…

“You can take your hands off the snake, Mister… uh…” Oh, shit.

“Shit, sorry.” 

Dave chuckles at you. “Pussy.”

“Shut up, you’re scared of harvestmen.”

“And you’re scared of calling ‘harvestmen’ daddy long legs for some reason. Now shut up, I’m sayin’ hello to Hermoine. She’s… really pretty by the way, why were they named after Harry Potter characters again?” 

Dave ends up speaking to her for a solid ten minutes. About the snakes. Hermoine, Cedric and Snape. Eugh. When he finally decides to walk away, he turns to you. “I didn’t think you’d actually touch the snake, dude. Anyways, are you ready to go or are there any more cool fish to see?”

There is no way you went through all this just to not go to the gift shop. You can and will buy an overpriced turtle plushie. “We are going to the gift shop first. You can get something but you are my excuse to buy a teddy, and you’re gonna deal with that.” He laughs, of course he laughs at you. “If you don’t shut up I’m not adding ice cream to the shopping list.” Naturally, he shuts up. (It was an empty threat of course, since ice cream is mainly your thing in the first place. You ain’t givin’ that up for anything.) 

The gift shop is a solid… two minutes away from the snakes. Damn, you didn’t realize how close you were to the exit this whole time (and also forgot there was a trash can next to you the whole time, so you’ve just been holding an empty coffee cup like an idiot this whole time.) Naturally, over a third of the shop is decked out head-to-toe in plushies of numerous sizes, ranging from hand sized to only a few inches shorter than Dave. Turtles may have been your example, but they have honest-to-god Finding Nemo plushies and damn if you don’t want one. “Dave, change of plan, we’re getting two plushies.” He nods and you separate. Naturally, you have to have either the largest or smallest Nemo. Since they’re overpriced as hell, it’ll hafta be smallest- and you are admittedly running out of closet space for plushes, since you’ve been collecting them since your eldest’s birth (has it really been fourteen years already?) Now that you’ve chosen, you turn to see that Dave picked the third largest turtle, about the size of a pillow at the largest. Perfect. “Anything cool catch your eye, li’l man?” 

“Not really,” the kid mutters, “what’s that thing?” He’s pointing at a fossil, smaller than his hand, sorta looks like a turd if you squint. 

“Says it’s a trilobite. You want it?”

He takes a second to contemplate it, then nods. Okay, then.

You really just spent fifty dollars at a gift shop, huh?

Your name is Ambrose Strider, the date is November 5th 2017, and you’ve decided your kid’s pretty cool.

**Author's Note:**

> As previously said, this is apart of an AU I have no clue how to describe. All in all, it's more self-indulgent character exploration. Every single character has grown up in a completely different environment, so it goes without saying they'll be at least slightly different. And again, feedback is appreciated. If anything reads too awkwardly, please say so, aha.


End file.
